BOULDER — The University of Colorado will “vigorously challenge” Ward Churchill’s effort to get his job back in the school’s ethnic studies department, a CU spokesman said today.

Ken McConnellogue, spokesman for the CU system, said the university is relying on its findings that Churchill engaged in repeated and flagrant academic misconduct to support its stance that having the controversial former professor back on the Boulder campus is a “bad idea.”

One week ago, a Denver jury decided that CU unlawfully fired Churchill for expressing his political beliefs and awarded him $1 in damages.

A judge will decide at a yet-to-be-scheduled hearing whether the former professor gets his job back.

Churchill has until May 2 to file a motion for reinstatement.

“CU’s reputation for academic integrity is the foundation for all we do and having him return to the classroom would be an ongoing threat to that reputation,” McConnellogue said. “We expect higher standards from our faculty and our students.”

He said the verdict doesn’t change the fact that 20 of Churchill’s academic peers found him guilty of academic misconduct.

“We respect the jury’s decision, but we have an issue with Mr. Churchill’s professional conduct no matter what the jury decided,” he said.

Churchill’s attorney, David Lane, called CU’s position “offensive.”

“A jury of their peers has convicted them of being constitutional violators,” Lane said this afternoon. “They should not be fighting against the truth but should be trying to implement procedures that will vigorously protect the Constitution.”

Churchill, 61, wrote an essay about the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that came to widespread public attention four years ago. The essay, which was harshly critical of U.S. foreign policy and compared victims in New York’s twin towers to a notorious Nazi, caused a firestorm of debate over the limits of academic freedom.

CU said the essay was protected speech but, in the ensuing hubbub, began probing Churchill’s scholarship. After a two-year investigation, it fired him after determining he had committed plagiarism, fabrication and falsification.

Churchill sued CU after he was terminated, claiming the school really fired him for exercising his First Amendment rights

Originally from Boston, John Aguilar covers Denver's suburbs for The Denver Post, where he has worked since April 2014. He has also worked at the Boulder County Business Report, the Rocky Mountain News and the Boulder Daily Camera.

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